A Novel Polarizer Made from Two-Dimensional Photonic BandgapMaterials

We demonstrate theoretically that two-dimensional photonic bandgap materials are indeed perfect polarizers provided that they have a proper photonic band structure along the incident direction of light. This kind of polarizer is fundamentally different from the conventional ones. It can function in a wide frequency range with high performance and its size can be made very compact, which renders it useful as a micropolarizer in micro-optics.